-- CHAPTER IV: Effectual calling the fruit of election grace

-- CHAPTER IV: Effectual calling the fruit of election grace

continued on us to Christ for ever, together with Judas his everlasting exclusion from them, and in all these the discrimination that the God of grace did shew thereby, does eminently appear. For why? Both this of his own, as well as the other of Christ's, relate to and concern one and the same thing; so as indeed he could not remember the one, but he must needs call to mind the other; and thereupon in the idea and impression of them all, he could not but set down these words of my text, which do correspond with the matter and scope of either.

And look, as in my text, and in the verses afore, immediately leading to them, he makes use of the very words Christ gave his command in, and unto the same purpose that Christ intended them; so in like manner it must be supposed that he makes use of and intends this word us in the same discriminating sense (which free grace puts between us and others), which himself had used it in, in that first leading instance given between Judas and himself, and the rest of the church there; and here in like manner applies it to discriminate the whole church of truly called ones that then was, and is to come, from all others that shall profess, as Judas did (whose instance was primum in isto genere), without an holy calling; and all this he did, to the end to magnify the God of all grace, and the grace that is in that God the more, which alone puts that difference, and illustrates his grace by this difference: 'To whom be glory and dominion for ever.'

CHAPTER IV

Effectual calling the fruit of election grace.—It is also the foundation of all the following acts of grace.—The calling of the elect different from the common work of calling that passes upon others, who are not finally saved.—The difference between them not only in degrees, but in kind.—In what that difference of kind consists.—Calling according to the purpose of election is a work of that excellency for kind above all other, that God is engaged to carry it on to perfection.

—This manifested from the special, and unchangeable love of God towards us, which produces in us that good and perfect work.

Who hath called us.—1 PETER 5:10

My former discourse of God's being a God of grace, and a God of all grace, hath run mostly upon what God is in his own heart, in his purposes, in his thoughts (as the prophet) towards us, and in his nature made over to us by his grace. But these having been hidden within himself, although the foundation of all, 2 Tim. 2:19, it is his calling us, that is, 1, the first outward effect or fruit of that his grace;

2, and the first manifest token or visible marking forth the persons whom this grace hath pitched upon; 3, and thereby farther made by God as a pledge, gage, and earnest that he will carry them on, continue that grace, and perfect that his work begun in them.

My purpose is not at all to engraft large common-place heads on this or any other of the words, as not to insist on what effectual calling or what what that glory is, or how great it is he calls ns unto, but punctually to keep to this scope, how each and all of these words have that in them as doth conduce to strengthen our faith in this great point of perseverance, and the engagement that God hath hereby both put and taken upon himself to carry us through to the end.

There are five things here in this parcel of words, 'Who hath called us into his eternal glory,' that do exactly serve to confirm our faith in this great point.

1. The first is, that he hath called‚ therein working a work of such a kind as his grace, that wrought it, is interested to carry it on. The effect of which is that the God of grace, when he calls out of grace, worketh such a kind of work as the same grace doth engage him to perfect it.

2. Who hath called? Even 'the God of all grace,' and therefore will certainly carry it on.

In the first of these the weight of the argument rests properly upon that respect which God hath towards the work, which out of grace he hath wrought; 'he hath called.'

In the second shall be considered, that he calling us as the God of all grace, hath shewn himself so highly to be such, even in calling, that therefore we may be sure he will carry on all other workings which are necessary to bring us to glory.

3. That he hath called us into glory.

4. Into eternal glory.

5. Into his eternal glory.

The handling of which, as they explain the test, so each and all of these make for us, and ascertain us that God will carry us through all temptations, &c.

1. I begin with the first, that he hath called.

There are two things under this head to be handled.

(1.) Some things concerning the work of calling necessary to be premised.

(2.) That a true and effectual calling of God is a work of that kind, and perfection for kind, and proceeding from, and out of that grace which I have spoken of, as God hath engaged himself to carry it on to perfection.

(1.) As to the first I shall only say these few things.

[1.] A saint's being called is the first immediate fruit and breaking forth of electing purposing grace. The river ran under ground from eternity, and rises and bubbles up therein first, and then runs above ground to eternity. It is that first and great difference that God puts

between man and man; the first mark God sets upon his sheep, whereby he owns them, and visibly calls them his: Rom. 8:30,

'Whom he hath predestinated, them he hath also called.' That is the first and nest benefit unto that in God's heart, viz., predestination.

You have the same in 2 Tim. 1:9, who hath 'called us according to his purpose and grace;' and hence, 'Make your calling and election sure,'

2 Pet. 1:10. He singles forth calling of all things else, calling upon us to make it sure, and thereby election will be made sure, that is, made sure to your faith. It is not that election is not sure without it, 'The foundation of the Lord standeth sure' before he calls, but it is not made sure to our faith thereby. The apostles therefore do speak one uniform language, of one woof and thread, and of a like extent, either when writing to saints they say men 'called to be saints;' that is one title, as 2 Cor. 1:2, 'Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, called to be saints,' or saints by calling. As also when they write to them under the notion of 'elect,' as 1 Pet. 5:13, 'The church,' says he,

'elected together with you,' &c.; and you know that of the 'elect lady,'

2 John, ver. 1. These are made terms equivalent in men called, and thereby the apostles signify that they acknowledge no other calling to be true calling, but what was the immediate and proper fruit of election, of which I have been discoursing; for these are terms commensurate, that is, of equal extent, to be truly and spiritually called, and to be elected; commensurate, as to the same persons.

None are called‚ in their sense of calling, that are not elect‚ and there are none elect but either such as are or shall be called.

[2.] A second thing I premise is, that a true and spiritual calling (so I shall hereafter call and notify it) is the foundation of all the actings of grace which afterwards do follow, and thence it is that the weight arid stress of this whole matter of making election sure is put upon this calling; for every spiritual acting of grace, to the end of a man's life, evidenceth that first work of calling to be sound and saving, and so conduceth to make a man's calling and election sure. This is evident in that fore-cited place of Peter, 'Make your calling and election sure.' He hath that at the 10th verse. But he had before premised two things, the first at verse 3, 'according as his divine

power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who hath called us to glory and virtue:' from whence it is plain that God, when he calls, doth endow the soul with all and the whole of the principles and seeds of all graces whatsoever, and which it shall for ever act. And this he doth 'through the knowledge of him who hath called us,' that is, a knowledge of God, and at calling; all this is for to signify why it is those words, 'Through the knowledge of him,' am added unto 'who hath called us.' He works not on us as stocks, but through a knowledge of God, who is the caller. For, my brethren, know it for a great truth, that the first light you have in your calling is a new light of God (who is primum credibile), which is the original seminal cause of all that work that accompanies calling. It may be objectively your thoughts were not taken up with God so as with nothing else; no, but yet light of him came in, and in the strength of that you began to see what sin was, as it is in itself against an holy God, and so to see what holiness is; and this knowledge of God is that which is so eminently, and in the first place, mentioned in the work of the now covenant of grace: Jer. 31, 'I will teach them all to know me;' and when he hath done that, thereby the law becomes written in their hearts. And thus he doth 'give us all things that pertain to life and godliness,' even together with and 'through the knowledge of him who hath called ns to (all) glory and virtue.' He gives the whole cluster, the whole lump, whole principles of graces at first.

The second thing he had said before is, that when he hath thus inlaid the principles of all graces at first, he then acts them, he draws them out, and he doth it in what order he pleases, and is a doing it all a man's life: and this second follows in ver. 5–7, 'And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, [and to brotherly kindness] charity:' and thus adding of these graces, in acts and exercises of them, one to another, is that I mean by drawing of them forth all a man's life. Now observe, as to the point afore us, that the effect or fruit of this adding or exercising of graces all a man's

life, is in the following 10th verse said to be a making your calling and election sure. 'Wherefore, brethren,' says he, 'give all diligence

(that is, by thus acting your graces, whereof you received all the principles at your callings) to make your calling and election sure; for if you do those things you shall never fall.'

Brethren, you use to have recourse to the first work only, and what flaws you find in that, if you have not the whole of what ministers set out to you, you are apt to scruple and question the truth of your calling; or if you have them not in that method in your discerning which they set them out in, you narrow your comforts thereunto. But give me leave to say to you, by the apostle's warrant, that God, when the light and knowledge of himself comes in, impresseth withal on your hearts all principles of grace, which he is a-brouching and drawing out all your life-time, and hence every act of grace you perform is, and may become, an evidence of your calling, as well as what was wrought at first. The measure, therefore, of your judging of your calling is not simply to be confined to what work thou hadst at first, but to be extended to the whole progress [of] thy life, in the course of which thou findest ever and anon such and such an holy and gracious disposition of heartbreaks forth towards God that is certainly grace. Now you are to take these as evidences of your calling, as well as that first work, and this that passage in Peter shews: put but the 5th verse and 10th together, and it will rise up to it; and it is a thing you are much to take in for your comfort.

Suppose thou hadst at first (I speak to them that are wrought on by degrees) for thy actings of grace but some few particulars thou discernedst, which yet are substantial to the state of grace, yet for thy help and comfort take in withal what thou hast thy whole life since to view and survey, and therein all thy self-denials and dispositions of ingenuity towards God, &c.; and these are all evidences of thy being truly called, and of thy having received all things pertaining to life and godliness, which by degrees God hath drawn out of thy heart.

Only I must add this, that in the calling of some, there shoots up very suddenly an apparent visible election-conversion; I use to call it so.

You shall, as it were, see election take hold of a man, pull him out with a mighty power, stamp upon him the divine nature, stub up corrupt nature by the roots, root up self-love, put in a principle of love to God, and launch him forth a new creature the first day, both in the spiritual sense of himself, and visibly to the observation of others. He did so to Paul, and it is not without example in others after him, as you shall see.

First in Paul, 1 Tim. 1:14, 'The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus:' the work of both which was perfected in the first four days, that you read of in his story in the Acts, and so in his Epistle to the Galatians, 'God revealed his son in me,' says he, Gal. 1:12. And it is not without example of the like in others; as of the Thessalonians, the apostle instances in them:

1 Thes. 1:4, 5, 'Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.' And why? The work that was upon you was so apparent and sudden. 'For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance;' that is, an assurance of the things delivered, as well as in an assurance that they had an interest in them. 'As ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sakes: and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost:' and ver. 9, 'And how ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven,' &c. There were such visible conversions then, and sometimes now-a-days, I call them election-conversions‚ and they are undeniably such, and visible tokens of election by such a work of calling, as all the powers in heaven and earth could not have wrought upon a man's soul so, nor changed a man so on a sudden, but only that divine power that created the world, raised Christ from the dead; and the soul that feels it must say so.

[3.] I must yet come in with this, that the Scripture speaks of a calling, a work of the Spirit upon men that is called a calling, and yet

it is not that calling the apostle here speaks of, and which we seek for. That speech, 'Many are called but few are chosen,' which our

Saviour Christ hath repeated again and again, but especially Mat.

22:14, where, if you look to the coherence, you will find it punctual to this point; for there came one in that was called, but wanted the wedding garment, upon the occasion of whom it was Christ says.

'Many are called,' &c.

My brethren, you shall observe in the very places I have in the former sermons insisted on for the proof of purposing grace, that the apostle, when he speaks by way of saving calling, he inserts this by way of distinction, 'Called according to purpose.' The apostle is fain here to distinguish upon it, because there is another sort of calling that is not according to purpose: You find it in Rom. 8:28, 'All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.' Which distinction evidently shews

(the apostle would not so sedulously put it in else), that there is a calling that is not according to his purpose, but according to the pleasure and menage of his common providential grace, which accompanies the word, about which is all the controversy under the name of sufficient grace.

There are some, both Protestant and Popish divines, that hold election as strongly as any, and do as fully profess that there is a calling proceeding from that election, and that those that are so called according to his purpose, shall never fall away, and that of such this place, Rom. 8:23, is to be understood. But withal, say they, there is a sufficient grace vouchsafed to many others, who are thereby savingly called, and have, by being called, obtained as true grace as the other; nay, and some of them go on to be saved by the same sufficient grace continued to them, or revived upon them, and improved by them; and in those that do not so persevere, there is yet no difference in the work of calling itself they once had, from that in the elect, take the mere work of it, but only in the event or issue, that some such do finally fall away; whereas, none of those that are the called according to his purpose, do so fall. And the reason of that

difference they give to lie in this, that election, and the God of all grace that wrought it, do maintain and carry on the one, but free-will grace having the keeping of the other, it squanders away that work in them, though it may fall out that some of such as improve that are saved. Thus they compound the business.

But I should only ask of those of that opinion this question, which the former discourse suggests, How can any man make his election sure by his calling if this opinion hold true? For the works, you say, in calling are the same, and there is no characteristical difference.

And so, those that are elect, are still left as much, yea, utterly, to seek to make their election sure by their calling. That is certain, unless there should be something in their calling which is not found in the others, that should put the difference.

The Papists, therefore, to solve this, plainly say, That no man can be assured but by a special revelation, and by that they mean a vision from heaven by an angel or the like, which is their way of revelation; and as for the testimonies of the Spirit in the case, they account that to be fanatical.

I demand again, if things be thus, to what purpose is this Scripture, my text, and many other Scriptures, exhorting to stedfastness of faith, and assurance in this point? That God, as the God of all grace, will carry his called on to the end, as having given us this pawn and pledge, that he hath called us—'the God of all grace who hath called us,' says the text—will therefore perfect, establish, &c., with which multitudes of other Scriptures join issue in the point, and give their suffrage unto, whereof some I shall have occasion after to mention.

This opinion of theirs enervates such Scriptures and makes them void.

That is the third thing concerning calling, for I am yet but upon the first head, to premise some things concerning calling.

[4.] And now you will ask me some differences between such a calling from election, and the other. Truly it were infinite to enlarge upon differences; I shall give you first a general answer, and then mention two or three differences after.

For a general answer, I shall only say this: there being in every true calling, as you heard, all things given pertaining to life and godliness, the trial of which, and the drawing forth of which, is throughout the whole course of a man's life; that, therefore, there is throughout, from the first of a true calling, a difference in all actings that do spring from that root; that is, in all acts whatsoever that are spiritual acts, exercised about any sort of spiritual things and objects. And truly this is to me a great truth; I shall give you some little account of it.

If you demand, have not the non-elect and the elect, from their very first saving-workings, many actings about some things spiritual that are merely common to both, that is, both go so far and so far, and thus far together, as in historical faith and the like; so as that the actings of each, which they exercise towards several divine objects, are without any difference at all in the acts themselves, having both but one and the same kind of working, till they come to some such or such special act or acts; that puts the first difference, as of faith justifying as justifying, or the like, purely evangelical? I confess I am perfectly of another mind.

I shall give you two grounds for this, my general assertion.

First. Perhaps the very having said, they receive all things pertaining to life and godliness at first, might carry it; in that having received all these in order unto the bringing forth all sorts of actings about objects pertaining to life and godliness, whatsoever they are; that, therefore, as they all do spring from that one universal root and principle received, so they do all of them differ from what other men have or act, who have not this root of the matter in them; for the fruit always answers in kind unto the root, and therefore as there is a new

root differing in all things, so must the acting of it differ also; conform to which, and confirming which, is that 2 Cor. 5, 'All things are become new' in the new creature: as for the principle, 'he receiving all things belonging to life,' &c., so suitably, all things become likewise new for actings, even the knowledge of the person of Christ; and that not only in the point of faith justifying, or when put forth for justification in him, but the knowledge of his person and of all in him; 'if I have known Christ after the flesh, henceforth I know him so no more;' all his knowledge of him, as he was the Mossias, was wholly new.

My explication of this first ground is, that whereas you may think and judge that a man that is savingly called, and a man that is otherwise wrought upon, they both believe that God is, but only in common, from one and the same principle, which serves both alike to act so far. For this, you will say, is but a mere historical faith, and the acts thereof are common to both of them. But give me leave to tell you, that to believe that God is, this in a man truly and spiritually called, is a different act and thing from the faith that is in the other; and you have Heb. 11:6, plainly for it, 'he that comes to God must believe that he is,' &c. From this I would infer that to believe that God is (which is the A B C of a Christian) he that is called, begins to believe it anew. He begins even there a new, that is, he hath another kind of act of faith about it, and upon another light and ground than another man hath, be he never so much enlightened, if not savingly.

So likewise to believe that God made the world, in which the apostle instances also in the same place; and my argument from that place is, that the apostle's scope is there to give instances of saving faith, and that as with difference from others. For to speak of such a faith as is saving, he had professed to do, and of no other, in that foregoing speech, which leads on to that whole discourse of faith in chap. 11, in these words, in the last verse of chap. 10, 'But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.' He therefore speaks altogether of saving faith, and throughout in the following chap. 11, and then all those instances which are there given, must belong all of them unto saving faith, flow

from it; and saving faith, we are sure, is proper to them that are called. And then, all the acts of such a faith must differ in kind from what the same are in others not saved, even as saving faith itself differs from faith that is not saving in others; and these to me are undeniable things, that therefore from the very bottom or foundations of faith, a true believer begins anew.

To instance likewise in the works of humiliation for sin, and sanctification of nature, which we say are preparatory for faith, they are far different from what are wrought in any other.

Brethren, consider for this but what was the eminent effects of John the Baptist's ministry, of whom it is said, that he did turn 'men to the wisdom of the just,' &c., that is, he truly converted them. Yet what was the most eminent effect of his ministry? Truly he did but point to Christ, and in like manner unto faith in Christ, as Acts 19:5 hath it, and as the story of his preaching shows. But the main business of his preaching, and the above-ground fruits of it in men's hearts was, that he but prepared the way for the Lord in humbling and emptying men, which a spirit of sanctification went along with, and fell upon them. You find it prophesied of, Isa. 40:3, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, &c.

The voice said, Cry; and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.' Observe what I shall say hereupon: That which you call the work of humiliation and repentance, which his ministry set their hearts on work upon, and which was the preparing the way for Christ, and which above ground did more appear, and grow up highest in their spirits, were yet as true evidences of an effectual calling, as any of those actings that followed in those converts upon Christ's preaching that followed. As that all flesh was grass, because the Spirit of the Lord had blown upon it, and had withered the world, and all things in it; yea, and all the fruits of flesh in a man's own heart that he trusted in, so that he did then see an emptiness in

creatures, in legal works, duties, abilities in a man to help himself as to salvation; to have all valleys filled, hills cast down, all conditions laid level in men's eyes, these are and were proper fruits of election, and pieces of true calling. And when our Saviour preached Mat. 5

(John having prepared a people for him), observe but what he at first preached to that poor prepared people, who had, I say (John having spoken to them of him), withal some sparks of faith in them towards him. Now, how doth Christ apply himself to these? 'Blessed,' said he,

'are the poor in Spirit.' He speaks to these very hearers and converts of John (as some of his apostles had been) that were utterly emptied, and the eminent grace appearing in them, was this emptiness and poverty of spirit likewise. 'Blessed are those that mourn,' in that they have sinned against a holy God, and from whom now they are aseeking pardon and forgiveness. And 'blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness,' for they saw no righteousness of their own to rely upon. And 'blessed are the meek;' they lay at God's feet, and at his dispose; they put their mouths in the dust, if there might be hope; God might do anything with them, and they not repine. So also, 'blessed are the peace-makers;' that is, such as having seen themselves to have been in a state of wrath from and with the great

God, and seeking peace and pardon at his hands for their own souls, do out of pity unto others, whom they see to continue in that condition, endeavour to convert their souls unto God, to make peace with him, as he in Job speaks. Such dispositions as these were the eminent effects and impressions from the baptist's ministry, and preparatory unto their being baptized with the Spirit by Christ as fire, and yet they rose not up to prevailing faith, and righteousness was not distinctly brought forth to victory. John pointed them to Christ, as Acts 19 tells, and their faith had him in their eye, but was not bloomed, and in the meantime these dispositions were wrought, and they were effectually called. Now then, suppose (as it falls out ordinarily) that men's minds, at their first being wrought upon, are apt to be so intent upon it for a while as thereby to be retarded in their going out of themselves so fully to Christ, and that a great deal of legality doth accompany the work in them, yet still there is the root of the matter a-working up in them, and although self-love may

be so much stirred in a man, together and mixed with these actings, that a man cannot discern the difference, and that a legality also cleaveth to them that doth much divert the soul, or at least obstruct it in the clear, and pure, and abstract actings of faith, as justifying, upon Christ;—yet these inlaid principles have their spiritual workings proper to them, and being in their spring and root evangelical, do work themselves out of that legality and self, and come in the end to breathe in the open, pure, and free air of free grace and justification in Christ, &c.

These hearers of John had received all things belonging unto life and godliness in their first work, and their calling began with those dispositions fore-mentioned, and yet a great legalness of spirit cleared to them, and much darkness about Christ and his righteousness. And we see now-a-days, men that are called and converted, what ado they have to get themselves out of themselves, and out of self-righteousness, ability, or from acting from themselves, and their own graces, as a new nature in them, and from doating in any manner upon that new grace they have received, and long it is ere Christ comes to be formed in them, and yet there is a true spiritual gospel root that shall and will work itself out of all; and in the meantime there is a true spiritual difference in those its actings from all workings whatsoever in any other, though mingled and covered with so much of self and legal dross, as hath kept them from a clear emergency, and working of them out of themselves with a prevailing victory, but they lie in such dispositions as those aforespecified, in which spiritual life works like a mole under ground, that is still heaving and casting up the earth it is covered withal, until it gets above ground.

Only I add this, that they receive little certain comfort in any or all of these, till Christ doth come more sensibly into their hearts, and until faith that is in the bud, mixed with all these, begins to blow, as we say, as indeed faith did not in those hearers of John Baptist, until

Christ himself came and preached to them, for whom and whose ministry it was they had been prepared by John, though in itself it

was not a bare preparation, but a saving work of calling in them. And thus much for my first ground.

Secondly‚ My second ground is this, no man can pitch upon any act, which he would have first to put the difference, but there's a counterfeit of it; so as you must distinguish upon that also, and so you must upon all the rest. Let a man, called effectually, say he hath assurance, that other sort of professor will say so too; therefore it is not such or such a particular act that begins to put the first difference, as if all actings afore it were but such as are common to others with them, and no other. No; but it is the kind of that and all other that puts the difference.

And if you ask, What is that kind of them all, or wherein lies it?

I answer: It is the spiritualness of all acts flowing from the new creature wherein the difference lies, if we could discern it. Our very historical faith, whereby we believe the things themselves, as that there is a God, &c., would, and may serve to make a difference between a man called, and one not called, only we cannot so readily discern that difference, it is not so sensible. I found this answer upon that of our Saviour, 'That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' The spirit begotten is the whole bulk, cluster, and lump of graces in our first calling received (we have spoken of), the whole seed infused when first born and begotten, all of which and throughout, is spirit, says he; and it hath not one only or a few particular objects to be drawn out unto, but all sorts of divine and spiritual things prepared for it to exercise itself upon, both in the first workings of it, and afterwards.

Now one that is not elect, he is wrought on so as to be manned and carried out to divine objects that are spiritual; and one that hath this spirit begotten in him, he is carried out to the same divine spiritual objects also; how then, you will say, shall we distinguish them?

I will give you it in as few words as I can. What is the root of all? That root you see is spirit. What doth that import? That he is made a spiritual man; and to discern that, let us go to 1 Cor. 2:14, 15, 'The spiritual man discerneth all things,' spiritually; 'the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned, but he that is spiritual judgeth all things;' from whence I learn that to have spirit begotten in a man, is to make him a spiritual man. And what doth his being a spiritual man capacitate him for? To take in all spiritual objects spiritually. It is the apostle's own distinction that he puts; a school-man could not distinguish more exactly; and it is one general distinction which serves to distinguish all acts of a spiritual man in the going forth of his soul unto spiritual objects whatsoever. You will then ask, What is it for a spiritual man to take in spiritual objects spiritually? I answer, when he considering them all, or any of them, as they are simply in their own spiritual nature, is then acted spiritually towards them, and hath suitable spiritual actings upon them in every power of his soul; whereas one that is not savingly called, though he be exercised about spiritual things, yet being not born spirit, the whole of his soul is not acted or carried forth to them, as barely apprehended in their spirituality, and so he doth not do it spiritually. But still how may we discern the difference between these two? It is easy, I do not say to discern it, but to give the rule for it. It is this; when our understandings take in and consider any spiritual thing, as it is in its own spiritual nature, and thereupon we find something throughout our whole hearts suited to that spiritualness of it, taken in under that apprehension or consideration of it, so to be affected, moved, stirred, carried on according as it is thus apprehended, then, there is a spiritual acting.

For instance, let thy understanding take in the spirituality of God or Christ, or of Christ's righteousness (to instance in that) what it is in itself, in the excellency of it, above thine own, as Paul, who counted all his but as dross and dung in comparison of this of Christ; yea, although thine own should be made up as complete as that which is in the holy angels in heaven; yea, and as perfect for degrees as the righteousness of all the angels in heaven, if that which is in them all were put into one, yet the soul would rejoice it had such a

righteousness to throw away and trample upon, to glorify this of Christ's in justifying of thee. And so as this thy valuation, and affecting to have this righteousness made thine, is not only or merely because it saves thee, but because the way of thine and a sinner's justification, by it alone, tends so greatly to glorify God and his grace.

Now findest thou an heart suited to, and thus heartily affected towards it, under these apprehensions about it, or such like to these?

Here is a spiritual acting towards that object, and as a liberal man will devise liberal things, so a spiritual man will be devising such spiritual things as these, and his heart will work after them accordingly. Yea, take sin as it is set out in the spiritual nature, and as a man considers sin as it is contrary to the purity and holiness of the great God, and contrary to his righteous will, and he finds withal suitably a contrariety in his heart, not only in his conscience, but in his heart against that sin, upon the account of this contrariety to God and his holiness, this is a spiritual acting towards that object. The 7th chap. to the Romans, from the 14th ver. to the end, confirmeth this:

Doth he speak of a godly man there under the person of himself? Yes; yet he abstracts in that view of his heart, there set forth, the workings of sanctification against sin from faith in Christ; the issue, indeed, is to drive the soul to Christ, ver. 25, but yet in all the foregoing passage he had barely viewed and considered sin and holiness in his heart, as they opposed each the other; and his own words tell us his eyes were fixed thereon alone; I see, says he, and I do what I hate; and it is 'not I, but sin that dwelleth in me.' I see, says he, in my mind, a law contrary to the law of sin; that is, take sin as sin, I have the contrary law in me enacted in my whole man. Have you the like? This is from the Spirit of grace; this is grace wrought in a true calling.

So that, my brethren, from all these instances set together, I collect and gather that from the first to the last, from bottom to top, there is a difference in all and every spiritual acting whatsoever, since in these fore-mentioned there is.

Only this I again add, that till faith blooms, or blows, as you say of a rose, we cannot have firm comfort in any of those things; yet

however such a difference there is in the things themselves. Also where those with these differences are found, there faith upon Christ is always in the bud, though it should not be fully bloomed. Also though there is this difference, yet if we rest in these things, without acting faith on Christ immediately every day, there is so much legality; and the apostle had much ado (and we all much more) to get out of himself, and was all his lifetime jealous of his own righteousness, and of his own heart, lest it should at any time turn in to that righteousness he detested, and lest his heart, so much as for any one moment, should be taken and found out of the exercise of pure and clear faith on Christ, as you read: Philip. 3:9, 'And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.' Thus much as to a general answer what difference there is in callings.

If you ask me particular differences, I shall give you two, which I find annexed unto such a calling as is according to God's purpose, and the proper effect thereof; and shall add a third.

You know I mentioned two places for this distinction of being called 'according to his purpose,' Rom. 8:28, 2 Tim. 1:9. We will have recourse to both these places, and only take those characters which we there find. First, Rom. 8:28, 'We know that all things work together for good to them that are the called according to his purpose,'—so far we cited it for our purpose afore; but observe what comes between as a character, whereby we may be able to distinguish, 'to them that love God‚ to them that are the called according to his purpose.'

So that [1] true and sincere love to God is a proper note, and fruit, and effect of being called. The apostle, you see, puts that in when he would make a distinction, and absolutely pitches it there; they are those that love God. You plainly see, the one is exegetical, or explanatory, or characteristical of the other: 'Them that love God, them that are the called according to his purpose.'

But you will say, Is this that that will infallibly distinguish a true calling from another calling of one that is not elected?

Yea, and I will give you the greatest evidence for it that the Scripture hath; it is in Heb. 5:12, compared with the 6th chapter, ver. 4, 5, 9,

10. It is a great instance, and punctual to the point of difference afore us; and therefore the greater, because in the one he speaks the lowest things of these Hebrews that could be spoken of sound professors:

'For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teacheth you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.'

You are become such; as if they had been otherwise once. Here is as low as low can be, for men that had professed Christianity for thirty years, as they had. On the other hand he speaks the highest things of the work upon, or calling of a man not elected, chap. 6:4, 5, Who were 'once enlightened, and had tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.' And at the 9th verse, he yet says of the true believers amongst them, 'But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.' Now what grace is it that the apostle, to choose, singles out to instance in, as that which was and argued

'better things' in them, than all that other work upon the others rehearsed, ver. 4, 5, and 'things accompanying salvation,' but this very thing of love? So ver. 10, 'For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed towards his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.'

But you will say, How shall I know how I love God? Would you have me give you a sign of a sign? Suppose Jesus Christ were here, what course would he take? I cannot take a better. If Jesus Christ were here (and I in his stead, as you know the Scripture speaks), what course did Christ himself take? He asked Peter the question, 'Peter, lovest thou me?' Nor did he go and rifle his heart by signs of that; but 'Peter, lovest thou me?' I beseech you but turn over your own hearts in all that hath passed between him and you; have you never found

intermingled with other workings on you, any true strains of love to him? No dispositions of ingenuity towards him? None? Think again; if Christ did now himself appear, and did put but this question seriously to thee, I know his presence would awe thee to speak what thy heart doth at the bottom ultimately conceive and apprehend, though thou canst wrangle it out, and dispute it with ministers (as your manner is), that you have no love to Christ, none. Christ is now here present, and we in Christ's stead do put that question to thee.

[2.] The second character averred (for I take only such as expressly and setly annexed) unto a calling according to purpose in that other:

2 Tim. 1:9, 'Who hath called us with an holy calling, according to his purpose and grace.' So then, hath God stamped holiness on thy soul?

Hath thy soul again and again considered this, how he is an holy God? 'Whose pure eyes can endure no iniquity,' and thy heart cleaveth to him under this thought and apprehension of him, though thy heart and life abounds with that which humbleth thee, and causeth thee to mourn, as contrary to that his holiness? Doth thy heart approve of all his commands in all things as holy and good, because this holy God hath given them, though never so contrary to thy lusts? And is it thy constant wish, Oh that this holy God would make me partaker of this holiness! and that I might live with this holy God for ever! I should have an happiness in him! Are there any such buddings? any such secret pulses, and strings, or veins of heart as these flowing in thee?

But you will say to me, holiness is but a legal thing, a conformity to the law of God, and was in the heart of Adam, who was under a covenant of works; and will you say that it is a certain evidence that the God of all grace hath savingly called me? I do not say that [it] is, without faith; but where true holiness is there must be faith, as where smoke is there must be fire; and being so understood, I do avouch, and will give you an invincible scripture for it, that true holiness in the least degree is a proper fruit and effect of the covenant of grace, and a certain evidence that God will perfect and stablish thee; take Heb. 10:14, 'By one offering he hath perfected for

ever them that are sanctified.' The effect of these words is the same with that I am upon out of Peter; Paul says, Them that are sanctified are perfected for ever; and Peter says, He hath called us into eternal glory; and you will see the God of all grace engaged in it. Thus Paul also speaks, 'Them that are sanctified he hath perfected for ever,' that is, he hath put them out of all danger of miscarrying, as for salvation.

Obj. Well, but you will say, may we build upon this, that those that are truly sanctified are the persons [who] are thus perfected, and in the covenant of grace?

Ans. Yes, you may build on it, for it hath a duplicate of evidence for the ascertaining of it. 1. That the Holy Ghost, by Paul's pen, hath uttered it, which single witness were enough; but, 2. Paul expressly says, That the Holy Ghost in another scripture hath testified it;

'whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness,' says he, (and his proof is most punctual and invincible), as also that it is the commensurate effect of the covenant of grace: ver. 15–17, 'Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.' Observe the accurateness and exactness of this proof. There were two branches of that his assertion in ver. 14.

1. They that are sanctified, 2. Are perfected for over (even as here, called into eternal glory).

And the Scripture he cites punctually speaks and joins both these together, even as the apostle doth.

1. Them that are sanctified‚ in those words, 'I will write my law in their hearts;' and so true sanctification is expressed in Scripture, 'My people, in whose heart is my law.'

2. Perfect for ever‚ in those other words, 'Their sins he will remember no more;' and I hope they whose iniquities God remembers no more are perfected for ever.

Unto which I add (that which I intimated afore), that the God of all grace would appear interested in it, viz., that this holiness, which this promise, thus to be perfected, is made unto, proves to be the proper fruit of the covenant of grace, and of that alone; for of the covenant of grace it is he speaks, when the Holy Ghost in the prophet prefaced unto it, 'This is my covenant after these days,' namely, under the gospel, that covenant whereof the apostle had afore said, Christ was the minister, with difference from that legal covenant: Heb. 8 ver. 6,

'But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises'; and ver. 10, 'For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God,' &c. There is no other, nor no better; all truly sanctified are in that covenant; and none that are truly sanctified are sanctified otherwise than by virtue of it.

I might add a third, that I may not leave out the principal verb, as we say, viz., 'saving faith,' and it is found in the same: Jer. 31:3, 'The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.' Hath God drawn thy heart to him? Specially was it his everlasting kindness wherewith he hath drawn thee? I do not ask whether with assurance of that his love; I am not so severe; for there is another drawing, even in the way of faith, of adherence and recumbency, wherein he hath proposed to thy soul all that which is said of his eternal love to his people, to allure thy soul to himself; yea, and thereby hath allured it, and hath strengthened thy heart to spread it and plead it afore him blindfold, that he would accept and wrap thy soul in that bundle. Eternal love hath herein found out, and owned thy soul, and thy soul hath owned and laid hold on, or rather referred itself unto [it.] And hath God caused thee, in this manner,

thereon to trust, as David speaks, and to give up thyself thereto, as to be saved, to the conduct of it, so to be carried on by it, and to fulfil in thee the good pleasure of his will, even the will and the deed, according to his good pleasure, thou working out thy salvation in a subordination and dependence thereupon; and do the drawings and motions of it in thy heart still recover thee from sin when thou art fallen, break thy heart, and humble thee for falling, and the little holiness thou hast hath come in this way? And dost thou owe the greatest part thereof (at least) to these drawings by God, and pleadings of thine with God about that his everlasting love (or his free-grace, as we usually call it), and thy interest in it? Dost thou grieve that thou art not made altogether holy by it? Hath God, indeed, drawn thy heart (shall I say even out of thyself) thus, and taken thy heart thus with this his ever-lasting kindness, and canst thou think that this God will leave thee? What, and have drawn thee with this love? No, he will never do it. He can never find in his heart to do it; his love hath engaged itself to thee, and himself thereby. And what is this 'drawing by loving-kindness' in Jeremiah, other than in the text, 'The God of all grace hath called thee'? And in drawing thee with loving-kindness, hath drawn thee to Christ, according to that of our Saviour, 'None comes to me but him whom the Father draws.'

I will but further cast in this for the comfort of some, which this place in Jeremiah suggests: Oh, thou mayest say, perhaps, I was thus drawn and affected once, and for a long time was carried along thereby in sweet and free accesses to the God of all grace, as sitting upon, and reigning in his throne of grace; having, together with these accesses, some holy obedience suitable, which I carried away with me, from those near accesses unto grace: Oh, but wretch that I am, I am greatly fallen and decayed in those respects. For thy comfort, read but the words afore in that prophetical passage, 'Again I will build thee up, and thou shall be built.' I know in the letter it is spoken of restoring their outward condition; but his everlasting love being alleged as the cause of it, and his drawing them as a conjunct effect, I may warrantably apply it unto their souls, as God also would

have those his drawn or called ones among them to understand.

'What do I then infer from hence?

Hast thou run into dilapidations and decays of that former work, when it, was a time of love, and when thou wert thus first drawn? Lo,

'Again,' says he, 'I will build thee;' and why? For my love is everlasting, and continues the same: 'I will heal their backsliding, and love them freely,' as in Hosea. And what is this also, other than what Peter also here farther says, 'The God of all grace who hath called us, will perfect,' the word is restore‚ when fallen, set in joint again, when laxated or out of joint through falls, as Gal. 6:1, it is used. This for the first branch of this first head, 'hath called‚' which was intended by me but only as some few things premised about calling according to God's purpose.

(2.) That 'calling according to purpose' is a work of that perfection for kind, with difference from all other works found in others, as thereby

God is engaged to carry it on unto perfection. This is added to the former, and is home to the point afore us. I put, you see, God's maintaining of this his work upon these two things.

[1.] His special love, that works in us a work of such a kind as hath a perfection in it.

[2.] That his love continueth an unchangeable respect unto it for the kind and perfection of it, as bearing the peculiar stamp of such a love. These two, in this argument, have a recursus or recoil, a running back again one into the other: 1. His love works the work; that work wrought hath that hold on, and interest in his love, as it is engaged to carry it on, because it wrought it, which indeed is no other than what is in the text: 1, the God of grace hath called; 2, this

God of grace having called, will perfect, stablish it.

I shall single forth but one scripture, which alone speaks fully, and to the whole of this assertion: it is James 1:16–18 verses, 'Do not err, my brethren. Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above,

and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he ns with the word of truth, that we should he a kind of first fruits of his creatures.' Upon this passage it is I shall centre my discourse, as being proper and adequate unto every tittle of the assertions, which were, 1. That there is a good, a perfect work of regeneration and calling, which proceeds out of God's special good will.

2. And this with difference from other gifts and works bestowed upon temporary professors.

3. Unto which work God bears an unchangeable respect, without shadow of turning from it; and that because,

(1.) It proceeds out of his good will at first.

(2.) Because it is accordingly a perfect gift, wholly differing from all other gifts whatever that he doth bestow upon the sons of men.

And a glimmering of all or most of these do appear out of the test in the very reading of the words; especially if their coherence with James his whole discourse before (which I shall presently set out) be weighed and considered.

Although I shall land in this passage, ver. 17, 18, as the conclusion, yet in order unto the greater illustration of the apostle's set scope in these words, I must fetch a compass about, and run over, as briefly as I can, the forepart of this chapter unto ver. 10, which may perhaps cast some light upon the whole epistle, as to what is the main design of it, which hath not been so fully observed.

And the reason why I am to do this is, I did necessarily put in this clause into the assertion, that regeneration or true calling is, &c., with difference from whatever other works or gifts God bestows on any others; and indeed one great end of God's in bestowing other

gifts upon men non-elect is to set off the more that his special grace shewn to his only called ones, in the perfection of that work on them, with difference from all other works that are but the counterfeits thereof; and therefore the consideration of both these together, set in view one by the other, serves greatly to illustrate this great point in hand; and this, I say, is one eminent scope in James, which I must punctually keep unto, and not digress, so as you are not to expect handling particular differences of these works further than as, in the opening of James any such shall start forth, and discover themselves there to lie; but the ὅτι of it, viz., that such a difference there is, and that this is James his design, is all my present business.

I shall draw the current of James his discourse into these rills.

First‚ He at first breaks in abruptly upon them with the greatest paradox to the world that ever was uttered, and which true

Christianity only can receive and embrace: ver. 2, 'My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.' 1, All joy‚ count it matter of joy, and of full joy; 2, when ye fall as into a precipice, that is, suddenly, without warning or being looked for; and 3, at once, not by degrees or succession; 4, into temptations‚ not one, but many, in the plural; 5, and these of diverse sorts; for persecution draws a train with it, as of poverty, all taken away, imprisonment, banishment (as John often, and Aquila, Priscilla), sickness through ill usage, death, miseries on wives, children, families.

Now for an apostle, God's herald, to proclaim this with so great a triumph to all joy and glorying, as ver. 9, thus aforehand, when they were but putting on their armour, when men use to do that when victors put it off, and to inculcate this as the best news, and greatest happiness and blessedness that could befall them: ver. 12, 'Blessed is the man that endureth temptation,' &c.—all this must have this supposal or thing taken for granted at the bottom of it, that the God of all grace had afore designed a most glorious issue, and would most infallibly and certainly uphold and carry all, truly called, through all the temptations to the most glorious issue and achievement at last

that the heart of man could conceive or expect; for so he inserts, ver.

3, 4, 'Knowing this;' that is, laying down this for a certain truth, take it for granted, and be assured of it at the very entrance into them; and indeed to have made this proclamation, without this foundation for the bottom of it, had been the most weak and uneffectual exhortation, not to say the greatest vanity, in the world; for otherwise without this assistance and undertaking from God, such temptations do work upon our flesh the clear contrary, and it is impossible, at least an infinite hazard and danger, but that they should do so; and so they would be matter of the greatest discouragement as could happen unto man. Only understand all this to belong unto sound

Christians, and to none else.

Now what is this but the same, and no other than the grand point we have been upon all this while out of Peter here in the end of his epistle, and with which also himself had made his entry in the beginning of the epistle: chap. 1 ver. 6, 7, 'Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season (if need be) ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise,' &c.

It is true indeed, James speaks of outward temptations, yet these are always we know, for a season, accompanied with inward temptations many ways, as in the same ways Peter acknowledged in those words,

'Though now for a season ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.' And our James gives a set and solemn admonition about them also; ver. 13, 'Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God,' &c. Of which more afterward.

But although this about temptations was James his entrance, and he begins with that as a necessary exhortation for those times, yet it served but to lead on to another greater, and more principal design, and that was a discovery of false and unsound professors, who filled their churches, of whom in temptation many already had, and others would fall away; and indeed the very design of God himself in

sending those temptations was and is to try and discover the sound and unsound, by enduring temptations; so ver. 4, 'That the trying your faith,' viz., of you, and the faith that is in you, whether it be sound or no. And, ver. 12, 'Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.' Hence, though this about temptation was his preface, yet it gave but the occasion and introduction to that other more general scope now specified, and this discovery to have been the set general drift of the epistle, Aretius* was well aware of, though few, if any; interpreters else; that although there are (says he) many other particular propositions handled by James, yet there is one general one, which you may find (says he) in ver. 22, 'Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves;' and often (in effect) again repeated in the epistle. And the occasion was, says he, that there were many that professed religion in their churches that were not sound, of whom the apostle gives many and shrewd characters through this epistle, which other interpreters smother, noting them only under the notion of vices or corruptions in practice among them. These characters as these, 'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,' ver. 8; and ver. 23, 'If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass,' &c. Then ver. 26, 'If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.' In the 2d chapter an allowed partiality in keeping God's commands: ver. 10–12, 'Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.' Also of those that would put their religion in faith without works, from ver. 14 to the end. In chap. 3:14, he speaks of professors whose zeal, though about matters of religion, was bitter, ver. 14–16, 'But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work.' Which he discerns from that wisdom which is truth of grace, whose character you find,

ver. 17, 'But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.' In the 4th chapter he gives like characters of worldly professors, the vigour and strength of whose intentions and contentions was spent upon seeking things of this world: ver. 1 and 2, and who if they prayed for them, yet it was to consume upon their lusts; ver. 3, which sort of men he terms in downright terms,' adulterers and adulteresses,' ver. 4, for there were of both sexes such: 'Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.' And at ver. 8 he gives them that counsel and direction which alone was proper to their condition, even to begin an initial repentance and conversion from out of a state of sin, which they yet lay in, ver. 8–10, 'Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.' And it is certain that the double-minded there was one that was hitherto in his sins, and not hitherto in the state of grace.

Now though Aretius seems first to descry this at ver. 22 of chap. 1, yet I hope you will discern the mystery of this discovery to work from the beginning of this first chapter, and to have had a good progress all along unto verse 19.

Secondly. Hence flows, then, the second rivulet the fore part of this chapter runs into, that James doth industriously set out two sorts of professors, sound and unsound, or temporaries; and also two several works upon them, although intermingledly, sometimes speaking of the one, sometimes of the other; and all to shew that the falling away of the one ariseth from the imperfection of that gift or work that is upon them, and the enduring of the other from the perfection or goodness of that work wrought in them.

For the demonstration of which, I shall cursorily run over from the 3d verse to the 19th, and then mainly centre in the perfection of a true work, out of ver. 17, 18, which is the point for the sake and proof of which I was induced to this exposition of this first chapter of James.

1. Begin we with his beginning at ver. 3, 4, which we have a little already opened, 'Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience,' &c.

1. To what sort of Christians doth he speak this?

Certainly to none other but the sound; for it is (1.) To them that have such faith as will bear the trial, and will, being tried, bring forth that patience which we have been a-setting out. (2.)

They are such as have already had some knowledge and experience in lesser trials and skirmishes, that their faith hath begun to bring forth patience in some measure.

2. It may be seen, by what a character of perfection it is (as opposed to counterfeit and imperfect, says Beza) that he sets upon their faith and the workings of it.

1. The faith itself he there speaks of is a true and perfect work of faith for kind; for, lo, the operations and issues of it are such.

2. The very word 'works patience,' in the Greek, signifies a thorough and a perfect working,* and not by halves; if you will English it, say

'perfecteth patience,' that is, begets such a patience as is true, perfect, genuine. This true faith doth. Then again,

3. Let that patience have but its perfect work, as when patience is of the right breed it will have, either in a lesser or greater degree. And then,

4. The effect of all these will be to make you (the persons in whom these things are) perfect, that is, will bring you to that perfection of thirty, sixty, or an hundredfold, which God hath appointed to bring you to heaven withal. Here is perfect upon perfect‚ and perfect and perfect again; and faith it is that is the great-grandmother of all these, and therefore it is a perfect or sound faith only he aims to speak of, which begets in its kind still what are perfect, even as itself is. And what doth this other, then, point us to? and indeed withal interpret that very point of difference which he centres in ver. 17.

Even as this thus begins it, 'every good and perfect gift,' viz., in true believers, as in distinction from what are counterfeit and imperfect, as which will never make him that hath them perfect, as the law's weakness and imperfection the apostle speaks, which true faith, you see, he says, doth. And is not this the very point of difference, also, which Christ in the parable gives between the thorny and good ground; the one brings not forth 'fruit to perfection,' Luke 8:14, but the good 'with patience,' ver. 15; of which afterwards.

Thirdly. The third head or rivulet is, that in a special manner those words of this first chapter, ver. 11, 'For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass; and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.' These words, I say, are in this coherence intended as an admonition unto a rich professor, who being unsound, would certainly wither and fall away if he repented not. And although the former general scheme might sufficiently evince James his scope to have been to set out these two sorts of professors, yet I do further single out this verse more largely to insist upon, because the opening of it will both give further light to this epistle, and also because that the words, taken with the words afore in ver. 9, 10, contain in them a foundation of difference, in this sort of professors, of the imperfect work wrought on them from that good and perfect work of regeneration, ver. 17, 18, and God's different respect had thereto, which is the main point in hand; and so I set this ver. 11 and ver. 17, 18, in a comparative opposition one to the other.

I shall expedite the opening of this ver. 11 by three heads.

1. Why, under the instance of rich professors, he should express the state of temporary believers, rather than under that of the poor, of whom he had spoken, ver. 10, as well as of the rich? Or why not under the persons of both? Why should he take the advantage to bring in this admonition concerning the temporaries upon the score rather of the rich?

I shall give an answer to this, to prevent an objection that had been obvious to be made upon the sequel of my discourse.

The account I give of the reason hereof is, The case stood thus: He writes to the Jews, to the twelve 'tribes scattered abroad,' ver. 1; the Jews were then scattered over all countries, and among all the nations.

And observe, 1. That the apostles, in those few epistles which they write to the Jews, give more frequent and sharp admonitions and characters about temporary believers, than all else that were written to the Gentiles. There are three epistles written to the Jews, Peter's,

Paul's to the Hebrews, and James's. Peter, you see how he dealt with them in his second epistle, chap. 2, towards the latter end. Paul wrote to the Hebrews, and no epistle speaks so much, so oft, so home, to temporary believers, and of falling short of the grace of God; of men's being enlightened, and tasting of the powers of the world to come, &c.; and of being sanctified by Christ's blood, and yet falling away, from ordinances first, and then proceeding to do despite to the Spirit of grace, chap. 10; and the like admonitions to take heed of such a state, chap. 3 and 4, not all the epistles so much.

And 3dly, James, he in a manner chiefly pursues this argument.

Whatever might be the reason of it, I know not; yet this argues there were amongst the professors of Christianity of the Jewish nation there, de facto‚ extant, more temporary believers, comparatively, than in other nations of the Gentiles.

Again, 2. That nation of the Jews were generally rich, and more given to seek riches than any other nation, and to that end they were merchants, or following merchandise, as they are to this day, full of griping, greedy of gain. And this James, in this very epistle, insinuates, chap. 4:13, 'Go to now, you that say, we will go to this city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain;' ἐμπορευσόαεθα, that is, we will merchandise, trade, and traffic; insomuch that Dr Hammond thinks that this their course of merchandise was intended here in this 11th verse, 'So shall the rich man fade away in his ways,' ἐν πορεἰαις here may possibly be (says he) a change of the transcriber for ἑμπορείαις, tradings, or merchandisings, as chap. 4:13. It is the rich man's speech, ἐμπορευσόμεθα, we will traffic, &c. The Vulgate hath it, in itineribus;

Piscator, in profectionibus. They lost religion, and withered, whilst they tumbled up and down for gain from city to city. He here speaks their hearts and their course; and this was their sin, and this their sin to this very day, and they are apt to hoard up riches. There is no people in the world, where they are not kept down, that do so strangely grow rich as they do. And they tumble up and down the world, as these did. Now, it fell out in providence, that in these churches James writes to there were many of such rich professors that were but temporaries, that despised the poor saints, chap. 2:6, that were 'masterly men,' as James speaks of them, chap. 3:1, who bustled in their congregations, thinking with their greatness to carry all afore them; men of unruly tongues, that did set on fire their churches; and of which, in relation to disturbances in their churches,

Grotius interprets those passages in chap. 3:4–8. These had religion in respect of persons, chap. 2:1, 'My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons,' and sought themselves for all the respect in the congregation, because they were rich and great; and it was the measure they went by in giving of respect, as ver. 2, 3, 'If there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool,' &c.

To confound them, 'Hearken, my beloved brethren,' let me speak a word in your ear, says James, I will give you a memento‚ and mind it well, ver. 5, 'Hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom?' This is full James. The collection from hence is, that though, as the apostle elsewhere says, 'Not many rich,' yet some, there are some of them that are called. Yet there were many of rich people among these temporaries, for the reason I have told you; and the temporary believers lay most among that heap.

There were fewer of the poorer sort that were temporaries. The Holy Ghost knew this, and therefore directs the point and dint of his twoedged sword against I the rich, and speaks more comfortable things of the generality of the poorer sort, as of those in which heap election lay. And therefore, above all others, do you examine the work of your calling wrought in you, and the sincerity of your profession; do you take heed you do not err and deceive yourselves, as ver. 16 and 22.

Take heed, therefore, says he, you rich men, you are in most danger, and your rank consists more of such as are unsound.

And, 3, you find in the parable of the sower in all the three evangelists, where these different works on professors are spoken of, you will find in all the three our Saviour Christ to indigitate that it is riches chokes the seed; and though he mentions other things, yet all mention riches: 'The deceitfulness of riches choke the word,' Mat. 13; himself foretold hereby, that it would prove the fate of rich men in a special manner. So that truly James had reason to speak to rich professors among them as such, to warn them of this above all other sorts of men, as being those among whom the most of temporaries usually lay.

2. The second thing for the understanding of this 11th verse, is the manifest allusion and exact parallel that is between Christ's words in that parable of the sower and James's here. This James, whether he were James the son of Zebedee, an apostle, or James surnamed the Just, the brother of our Lord, was one that followed Christ up and down, and heard his sermons, and so was well acquainted with Christ's parables.

(1.) Our saviour utters his parable of the difference of professors under this common style, 'hearers of the word,' as in all the evangelists; the close of them all is, 'Take heed how ye hear,' and to this day you call professors hearers. James doth the like, ver. 19, 20, he describeth professors by this title, he is one that 'hears the word.'

Thus also in Mat. 7:26, 'Every man that heareth these sayings of mine, and doth them not,' &c.; and here in James 1:22, 'Be not hearers only, deceiving your own souls.'

(2.) James expresses falling away by withering: so you have it in verse 11, 'The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass.' Look the parable, Mat. 13:6 and Mark 4:6,

Christ useth just the same expressions.

(3.) The parable expresses their withering to be caused by the sun's rising and heat: 'When the sun was up,' Mat. 13:6, 'they were scorchod; and because they had no root, they withered away.' How doth James express it concerning those rich temporaries? Says he,

'The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass.' It is expressed the same in terms.

(4.) What doth James interpret this sun's rising but of temptation?

So in the following, ver. 12, 'Blessed is the man that endureth temptation,' which is his inference brought down through this 11th verse. The parable in like manner thus expresses it, 'When tribulation or persecution ariseth for the word,' Mat. 13:21; and in Luke 8:13 more expressly, 'And in time of temptation fall away.' The other call it 'persecution' and 'affliction,' but Luke plainly useth

James his word, 'temptation.'

(5.) James instanceth in the rich, so all the three evangelists instance in that above all other: 'Riches choke the word,' Mark 4, Luke 8:14,

Mat. 13:22.

(6.) How doth James express the opposite saving work? 1, By a 'good work;' 2, by a 'perfect work,' ver. 17. He had said, ver. 4, 'Let patience

have her perfect work.' In what language doth the parable speak?

They are the 'good ground,' says he, that (1) 'having good and honest hearts,' they do (2) 'bring forth fruit with patience'; and (3) do bring forth fruit 'to perfection.' For that is one difference whereby the thorny ground is diversified from the good ground, 'They bring not fruit to perfection,' Luke 8:14. Oppositely says James, 'Let patience have her perfect work,' and it will make you perfect. That which is perfect faith, and of the right kind, will, when tried, bring forth patience; and let patience have its perfect work, it will make you perfect.

(7.) And lastly, whereas in the close of the parable Christ says, 'Take heed how you hear; for whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seems to have;' thereby meaning those imperfect gifts and impressions, and profession thence arising. Now come to James, 'If any man among you seem to be religious,' &c. This for the second head, the parallel of the parable.

3. You have the elegant similitudes whereby he expresseth the unchangeableness of God's love and dealings with and towards this work. The comparison is made between God and this sun which you see; he calls both the 'Father of lights;' therein they agree, but with a dissimilitude; it is a comparison from an unlikeness, as the word

'without variableness‚' &c., shews; as if he had said, God the Father of lights is not in these respects as this sun; also this comparison, with an answerable difference, may be extended unto those grassy fruits, ver. 10, which the sun brings forth out of the earth, as bearing in this comparison the resemblance of that work on temporary believers, as will appear. And on the other hand, he opposeth to them, and sets in comparison with them, those super-excelling good and perfect fruits which God the Father of light, brings forth in the hearts of sound

Christians, which he likens not only unto the best first-fruits of the earth, but of the whole creation.

(1.) In general, that his scope is to institute a comparison between God and this sun; that the phrase 'Father of lights' manifests, which

yet some* do understand simply and singly spoken of God, without any allusion unto the sun at all, and interpret it by the like titles given to God in other places, as 'Father of glory,' Eph. 1:17, and so to be all one as to say, 'a Father full of lights,' Pater luminosissimus‚ and so to import only what elsewhere is said, 'God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,' and 'who dwells in light inaccessible,' &c. But that this title of Father of lights is, [l.] Not spoken only of what he is in himself, but in respect to his effects, that come down from him (though what he is in himself must be understood to be the foundation of it), is plain; for he is termed

Father in respect of his gifts, as these words shew, 'Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights,' James 1:17. And Father‚ we know, is all one as the Author or Creator; as 'Father of spirits,' Heb. 12:9, and elsewhere often; and here in respect of begetting us, not out of his nature, but his will, ver. 18.

[2.] And, secondly, that it is spoken in allusion to the sun, appears, 1, not only by this, that this gun is known to be the principle and fountain of light, both in the moon, and in the stars, and in the air; and so God is of all lights in angels, who are called 'angels of light,' 2

Cor. 11:14, and his saints 'children of light.' He is also the author of that light which is in the universality of mankind: 'who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world,' John 1:9. Now, then, the meaning is this, that God, he who is the Father of all lights, in all these owns himself to be, in a special manner, Father of such spiritual lights as are a good and perfect gift,* which regenerates and makes men children to him, as in verse 18, and enlighteneth them with the light of life, as Christ by way of distinction speaks, John

8:12. 2. This allusion also that of first-fruits confirms; and, 3, many of those interpreters that would have him styled thus, in respect of him being light in himself, and so quasi Pater luminosissimus‚ as Father of glory, &c, yet are fain to acknowledge the next words, no shadow of turning‚ to bear a comparison with the sun in a way of dissimilitude. This as to the general import of the similitude; it is a

comparison with the sun, which the ensuing particulars will more fully clear.

1. The particulars of the comparison. He expresseth the difference of the two works, perfect and imperfect, under the similitudes of the fruits which God and this sun produce. This the similitude of the first-fruits of the whole creation, ver. 18, on the one part, to which he compares regeneration and all perfect gifts accompanying, doth shew; being set in comparison with those imperfect grass fruits spoken of in verse 11, on the other part, which he styles but 'grass,' and the 'flower of grass,' which, though they have an outward grace in the fashion of them, yet are but grass, as his words there are; and by such he sets out the most glorious gifts that are in temporaries.

And the comparison of those two words is exceeding elegant.

First. These common imperfect gifts had been most aptly compared to those grassy earthly fruits which the sun brings forth in the stony and thorny ground. For, indeed, how is it that the sun doth bring forth these, or indeed any other? Not immediately, but out of the principles which are in the womb of the earth, only the sun quickens and enlivens them, and draws them forth by the influence of his being, light, and heat; but creates them, not immediately, but educeth them as forms are out of the principles in the matter, as vapours that it draws up out of the earth.

And although Christ in the parable instituted his comparison only between these fruits that are but grass and those other good fruits of the earth that are grain and corn rising up to perfection, yet James his new comparison, ver. 17, riseth far higher, as in the sequel will appear, and further sets out these first fruits by their high descent (as I may term it, in allusion to James his phrase of them), as being in their original merely celestial, and in that respect no fruits on earth to be compared with them. And this heavenly original of them the parable took no notice of, but compared them only to those precious fruits of the earth, of corn, &c.; so as the comparison here, as James

advanceth it, runs between such fruits as are but mere grass, and such as are supposed heavenly and celestial. And this their original is here emblazoned in three several phrases.

That they are from above‚ which is all one as to say from God; yea, and from God wholly, as of Christ it is said, in John 3:31, 'He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all.' And such, in respect of their origin, are these first fruits in comparison to those others. And to this very purpose doth James himself use the phrase in this epistle, when speaking of the difference of true zeal and counterfeit zeal about matters of religion, he sets that difference forth by their different original, as well as by their effects; that true zeal is a wisdom (or grace) from above, &c.: chap. 3:17, 'The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy;' but bitter zeal, πιχρὸν ζῆλον, which we translate

'bitter envying,' ver. 14, and 'strife in your hearts,' though about matters of religion, 'this wisdom,' ver. 15, 'descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.' It is but the acting the corrupt principles that are in the heart already, principles of flesh,

&c., which the devil also will strike in withal to make divisions; and therefore, says he, 'glory not' in such a zeal (as John did), and 'lie not against the truth,' in judging that to be true grace. No; the like may be said of other graces, and of their counterfeit, for all have their counterfeit. These differ thus in their original, and therefore in their kind and in their effects.

Secondly. These perfect gifts are said to descend‚ καταβαίνειν, as the Holy Ghost himself is said to do, John 1:33; that is, wholly and purely comes down from God, and nothing of it is from what is beneath.

Thirdly. These first fruits are wholly by creation, yea, and by a second creation, being the first fruits of the whole creation, and so excelling the first; and yet the first creation was totius entis‚ of the whole being

of what was then created; and therefore hereby these are imported to be wholly from him in the whole being or entity of them. It is the seed of God which is let fall into the heart from above, and so wholly heaven-born for kind, though in degrees imperfect, and though accompanied, in the heart where it is, with innumerable mixtures of self and corruptions.

Now as to those other imperfect gifts, this visible sun brings forth common herbs, as daisies, primroses, and such as grow alone in the wilderness; and such, and no better, are moral virtues which are produced in heathens, and without the word, and are but grass, as all will acknowledge. And the same spirit produceth, with and by the means of the word, enlightenings, and affections stirred by these enlightenings towards these objects or things held forth in the word; yet still the work itself, if it be examined to the bottom, springs and arises but from the principles that were in the heart before, only are now elevated, lifted up, and raised and taken up about new divine objects by a new light presented to them.

If you object, are they not said to be partakers of the heavenly gift?

Heb. 6:4.

The answer is, there is indeed a participation of a gift from heaven, but it is but in respect of an influence from heaven, without which they would never be drawn forth; and in that there is a word that comes from heaven, which moveth and affecteth them, by the instrumentality of which, there being a light to direct them to new divine objects, above what nature or reason, &c., would anyway reveal, or so far enlighten them in, these now objects are set on with power, yet so as the principles in the heart are not radically or intrinsecally changed.

(1.) The understanding hath not a new principle, a spiritual faculty to capacitate it to take in those spiritual things spiritually, and as they are in their own nature. And so, though there seems to be a great change, because both a new light is let in and new objects presented

that never were afore, yet as a piece of glass remaining red or green gives every beam of light let in a tincture of that colour that is in itself, so that the objects that come to the eye through it are dyed and tinted also, and so discoloured, whereas through a pure crystal glass they appear in their own native hue and excellency; thus is it here, a new crystalline is put in to take in all spiritual things in their own true native hue and glory.

(2.) Self-love, which in corrupt nature that is not truly regenerated is the spring of motion unto all the wheels, the affections, which rise and fall no farther than as self, that possesseth, informs, and spirits all these, doth find itself concerned; that principle in the heart meeting with such things in the word as do so deeply and nearly concern a man's self, and such things in the word are now set upon the soul with power (which are therefore styled the 'powers of the world to come'); hence the will, and all the affections that are seated and rooted in self are awakened, stirred, acted, and they 'receive the word with joy,' and so other things in the word, with other affections, according as the things revealed do concern self, but no farther than as that is the spring and mover.

And (3.) From these the counterfeit of all graces will soon arise and spring up, and a zealous profession for a time.

2. And yet, secondly, all these are (as you may easily discern) in their root and principle but flesh, though produced by an assistance from above, and so are accordingly to be reckoned but amongst fruits of flesh; and that the best, if you compare them with the fruits of the earth, as Christ doth, but as the 'flower of the grass,' as both James, verse 10, terms them, and Isaiah also, chap. 40:6, 7, and Peter likewise, 1st Epist., chap. 1:23, 24, 'Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever: for all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.' And what is there termed flesh and grass, &c., by Peter, is not meant only of worldly glory, as of riches, honours, &c.

(as nor that of Isaiah), nor chiefly so, but also and more principally of all excellencies and gifts that are short of true regeneration, which he opposeth to them, and which is wholly a right seed, and incorruptible; but all other are of a corruptible seed or principle, as hath been now explained, and as the apostle styles them there, in distinction from that incorruptible principle and original let down into the heart. And the knowledge of this distinction answers a great objection I shall afterward have occasion to mention. This the comparing of verse 23 shews, 'Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but,' &c.

And indeed Christ himself in the parable speaks at such a kind of rate of these bringings forth on the thorny and stony ground, of which James, verses 11 and 13, speaks, and how that indeed, and in reality, all their gifts and graces were not fruit, they deserved not so much as the name of fruit, nor doth he thus vouchsafe so to style them of the thorny ground (who were the highest sort of those professors), and intended in Heb. 6, ver. 4, 5, as appears by comparing ver. 7, 8, as I have elsewhere shewn: 'For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance. For the earth, which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.' Of the thorny ground, I say it is expressly said in the parable not only that they 'bring not forth fruit to perfection,

Luke 8:14, the root and principles not being perfect, nor are the fruits such. They have neither perfect gifts, nor bring forth perfect fruits. But more expressly both in Mark and Matthew it is said that they became unfruitful; but yet more expressly in the πρότασις, or fore-part of that of the thorny ground, as by Mark it is recorded:

Mark 4:7, it is said, 'It yielded no fruit.'

Now then, if all the gifts and profession in such professors be not fruits, though never so goodly, and deserve not so much as the name, what must they be accounted then? Why, truly, no other than grass, as those deaf ears‚ as you call them, that grow upon house tops, although they have the same shape that stalks and ears of corn have, as growing out of chaff left in the straw, yet they have the name of grass: Ps. 129:7, 8, 'Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Neither do they which go by, say,

The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we bless you in the name of the Lord.' So these here, only they are the flower of the grass indeed; the highest and greatest excellencies and endowments that this earth affords, yet but grass. And the reason is, God loved, &c., and his glory aimed at the heart, as the pith and substance of all godliness,—Take these out of all duties performed by us, or out of gifts wrought in us, and they are but flesh as well as any other excellencies of honours, learning, wisdom, virtues, &c. For why? If the kernel, the grain, the corn be wanting, the stalk and the ear are no other than grass and chaff. The most goodly flowers that the earth affords, as lilies, (which indeed are our tulips, and brought from those countries), so glorious, as Christ says, 'Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as one of them,' Mat. 6:29; yet, ver. 30, he styles them but 'grass, which to-day is flourishing, but cast into the even the next day.' And thus all such profession, it is but grass, and will wither here, and be burned hereafter, as John 15:6, 'If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.' This for the first part of the comparison; gifts in unsound professors are not fruits, but grass.

But opposite hereunto, he sets true regeneration, ver. 18, and those graces flowing from it, specified by him, of faith, ver. 3; patience, ver.

4; prayer, ver. 5, 6; humiliation, and the blasting of all outward glories, a valuation of things at their own rate, ver. 12; and then love, ver. 12. These, and such like, he compares to the first-fruits of the whole creation, by the extent of which similitude he prefers them, not only unto the best fruits, as of grain and corn arrived unto full perfection, unto which Christ in his parable had only compared

them. And so that, look what difference of worth or valuation corn or grain do bear amongst the sons of men, in comparison of what is but grass, and the flower of the grass, such a difference do these sustain in God's esteem. And what an high rate such fruits of the earth have, or ought to have, and would have in times of want amongst men, our

James also hath prompted us to consider, honouring these with the epithet of the 'precious fruits of the earth,' chap. 5:7; as the Psalmist had afore him compared the tears and prayers of the saints unto

'precious seed:' Ps. 126:6, 'He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed‚' &c.; and compare with it the other, Ps. 129:6, 'Let them be as the grass upon the house tops, which withereth afore it groweth up.'

But observe, that here he doth not compare them simply to the best or first-fruits of the earth, as our Saviour afore him had done, which are yet more precious than gold or diamonds, which the earth also affords, for they preserve man's life, but you cannot eat gold or jewels; but unto the first-fruits of the whole creation, which is a far wider territory than the earth, and so takes in angels and all, as Austin* hath extended the comparison; Gratia Dei non solum omnia sidera, verum etiam omnes angelos supergreditur. The grace of God surpasses not only all the stars, but also all the angels: and Aquinas his reason is evictive of it, Majus opus est quod terminatur ad bonum aternum divinæ participationis‚ that is a great work which is ordained for, and terminates in such a good eternal in the participation of the divine nature; quam quod terminatur ad bonum naturæ mutabilis‚ than that which is terminated in the good of a changeable nature.

Now take that grace of the angels which they had by their creation, and it was in the termination and tendency of it (take it as it was by creation only) but a mutable and changeable good, as was sufficiently seen in those that fell; and the same might have fallen out, and would yet fall out, in them that stood, had they not more than their creation grace.

If, therefore, these gifts be for their perfection the first fruits of the whole creation, then more excelling in their kind than the whole creation, even as when our Lord is said to be 'the first fruits of them that sleep,' 1 Cor. 15:20; and again, ver. 23, 'Christ the first fruits, and afterwards them that are Christ's;' as Christ is there so styled, in respect of his transcendent excellency, in comparison of them that are his; so, likewise, are these the first fruits, so styled for the like reason of eminency unto the rest of the whole creation. Perfect gifts, then, these are, and the most perfect God can produce, and therefore perfect, because they make us the chief and top of the creation. Deus suis donis facit illos perfectissimos‚ and at last they do make us most perfect.

There is this further in this similitude which James useth above that which Christ had imported, that he likens the producing of these his first fruits to a father his begetting his children: for as, ver. 17, he styles God 'the Father of lights,' that is, of these lights of grace, so, ver. 18, he says, 'he begets us, that we might be the first fruits of the creation.' Now mark this. These precious fruits of the earth, which the earth brings forth, the sun is never styled the father of them: they are but the effects of his benign heat, which accompany his light. He is termed indeed the father of all those lights that are in the heavens, as the stars, the moon, &c., but not the father of the fruits of the earth, for they no way wear his image, his beams, as we see the stars,

&c., do those of the sun. But God, the Father of lights, begets these graces in us, as a father that conveys his image, so that look as himself is 'the Father of lights,' so those that are born of him are

'light in the Lord,' and 'children of light,' as many scriptures in the New Testament speak. And their graces have the perfection and glory to be the image of that light and holiness that is in himself. So that if you would fill up this new comparison of James to the full of it, you must first fancy this visible sun to bring forth not earthly fruits only, as in the earth we see it doth, but that every one of those fruits bore and had the image of the sun itself shining and sparkling with light, in their proportion, as itself doth, as if he caused new stars to rise out of the earth instead of stalks, as well as in the heavens we see stars

are enlightened by him. And this is the very case here: Philip 2:15, 'That ye may be blameless, and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the minds of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.' 'Let there be lights in the firmament,' said God, Gen. 1:14; φωστῆρες, says the Septuagint, the same word that is used here. Our graces are such in their original, and ought to shine as such in this world; and it is as if Paul had said, Look what the stars and those lights are in the superior world; that you are, and ought to be, in this lower world, and as far exceeding of them stars, as your heavenly Father, the Father of these lights, doth exceed the sun that is the father of those other. And observe, farther, in that Philip. 2, how they are termed at once both 'sons of God,' and 'lights,' even as here likewise they are said to be begotten of God as the Father of lights; both places agreeing in this import, that such sons doth God beget, even children of light, and such products as their graces are. And thus much for the first comparison between the works of themselves, with the difference of them, as in our James it is held out in temporary professors, and those that are truly regenerate.

The second comparison holds forth the respect or regard God hath for and towards his first fruits for ever after they are brought forth by him, different from what he beareth unto the other, the work on temporaries: which different respect he elegantly sets out, and amplifies from and by what this visible sun bears, and holds towards the fruits fore-mentioned, which are but grass which it brings forth.

1. This visible sun, James tells us, ver. 11, and Christ also, no sooner ariseth, but with a scorching heat it withers such grass, &c. But not so God's first fruits; he permitteth not temptation to seize on them unless need be, as Peter tells us, and but so far as need is: he restrains the roughness of the east wind that would hurt them, Isa.

27:8, takes care 'the sun shall not burn them by day, nor the moon by night,' Ps. 121:6. This in the eleventh verse.

2. In respect of its courses, motions, and influences towards them, in ver. 17, clearly different from what God the Father of lights holdeth towards his, of which by and by. For, as I said, it is a comparison of God unto the sun, with difference.

And, my brethren, be aware of this once for all, and take it along with you, as the measure and true rule of interpretation to these words, that his chief end here is not to compare God to the sun, in respect of the purity and unchangeableness of his nature or essence, as if it run thus: that though the sun should be subject to a variableness, and to a shadow, and darkness in itself (which to our view it is not, as we daily may observe) yet that God is not. And yet unto this do commentators* ordinarily carry the scope of James in this passage, and in the very reading you ordinarily apprehend this meaning of it.

But the apostle's scope is to compare the sun in the variation of his courses and motions to and fro up and down towards the earth, and towards the fruits it hath begotten thereon, and thereby, as by the contrary, to set out what an unchangeable posture, and carriage, and dealings God holds towards these his first fruits, that it is without variableness or shadow of turning, namely, of turning off from them; no, never in the least.

(1.) That it is not so much to set out the unchangeableness that is in himself, as the unchangeableness of his love towards these his perfect gifts, which, having once come down from this Father of lights, he never turns off from them, however, but carries himself without variation towards them everlastingly.

That this is his meaning, 1, not only the very terms of the similitude here used do shew,—for they signify the various courses and motions of the sun (of which by and by), of which he says God is without them, and therefore it must be understood he intends to signify that God is without such a variation of motion, posture, or the like towards his children,—but, 2, the next words do expressly explain them of his will, and so of the motions thereof: 'Of his own will he begat us' at the first, and accordingly, in like manner, continues the

same his good will after the production. This is it that these words, 'without variableness and shadow of turning,' principally point us to.

Though indeed it must be added that this unchangeableness of his will towards them proceedeth from the unchangeableness of his nature, according to that of the prophet, Mal. 3:6, 'I am the Lord, I change not.' This is the foundation of all; and therefore it is that 'you the sons of Jacob are not consumed.' Yet still so as it is his free will that, flowing from his nature, cometh between us and that his unchangeable nature which is the immediate cause of it; for that is also one of the differences here made of God from this sun. That the sun begets its fruits necessitate naturæ‚* out of a necessity of nature, but God, this Father of lights, out of his will, in whom and as he pleaseth.

Also this is to be taken in, that though it be his mere good will moves him to beget us at first, yet that, after he hath begotten it, that then ever after his will bears a respect unto his own gift, as it is a perfect gift; for those words, 'with whom there is no variableness,' &c., are spoken as in respect unto those perfect gifts that came down from him as Father of lights, and so do import a respect unto the perfection of them. These things premised,

To come to the comparison itself. The terms here used, without variableness and shadow of turning‚ are perfectly astronomical, and express the various motions of this sun toward this earth, and the fruits of it. Jerome was the first that discerned this, and Erasmus after followed him, and some other late interpreters, having the scent of it, have acknowledged it, and pursued it; and yet, which is strange, though they agree that the various courses and motions of the sun are meant, yet they fall cross under which of these words the one or the other should be meant: that whereas to all men's knowledge and observation the sun varies in respect of two sorts of courses and motions, the first rising and setting every day, which we call his diurnal or daily motion; the other from the northern tropic to the southern; the first in winter, the second in summer; in the one

descending lower to the earth, which makes winter, whereby he hath less influence of light and heat; the other in ascending so high again in the heavens, which makes spring and summer; and this course of his, in the whole reciprocation of it, is performed in a year's space, and we call it his annual or yearly motion.

These are the various courses of the sun. You see accordingly here are two different words to set these out by.

1. Variableness, παραλλαγή; 2, shadow of turning, τροπῆς ἀποσκίασμα; and yet interpreters that assent to this, that both are intended, differ about it which of the words should import the one, which the other.

I will not much trouble you about it. De Quiros he peremptorily says the first word, παραλλαγὴ, imports the yearly motion of the sun, that recessus hyemalis‚ that departure of the sun that makes winter, and quotes Proclus* for the import of the Greek word; and that other word, shadow of turning‚ he interprets of his setting and turning into the other part of the earth every night, by which he casts a shadow, which causeth night.

Doctor Hammond is for the clean contrary signification of the words, yet agrees that both these motions are meant: to him I refer any that will read him, for he is largest upon it. However, between both I have what I aim at, that both these motions of the sun are intended, though I for my part incline to think with Piscator and others, that by shadow of turning‚ or the shadow caused by his turning, is meant, that his nightly turning off from this or that part of the world, by setting into the other, and so leaving cold night and a shadow behind him.

But the application of this gallant similitude unto the unchangeableness of God's love and motions towards us, is that I aim at, and which this hitherto hath made way for.

1. This visible sun, by reason of these its motions and turning, leaves a damp upon the fruits fore-mentioned, and indeed all other which it brings forth; in winter these fruits die, and shrink into the root; every night casts a shadow on them, and a coldness which is prejudicial to them, the sun thus as it were carelessly leaving them.

But, 2, not so God in his courses towards those his first fruits.

(1.) He never alters in the least degree his good will towards them (and in respect of the unchangeableness of his will it is that this comparison is made). We ourselves may change, as poor creatures we do; but God changeth never towards thee; his heart towards thee is what it was. Thou indeed mayest have clouds come between thee and sin, a 'dark and cloudy day,' as the prophet Ezek. 34:12, but it is day still; yea, there may be tempests and storms upon thy soul, but it is day still; as in countries where the sun is at the highest there are, and most there of all other countries; but his love is in its zenith, stands as Joshua's sun at the top over thee, fixed and perpetually. It alters not, removes not a degree, the fixedness of its station is pitched and taken up towards thee in respect of everlasting kindness.

He may let thee feel the effects of his love less one day than another, in comforts quickenings (for he works the will and the deed of his own good pleasure), but his love substantially and solidly is one and the same, and varies not, whatever you may think: 'I know,' says

God, Jer. 29:11, 'the thoughts I think towards you, thoughts of peace, and not of evil,' in all trials.

Nor (2.) art thou to reckon of this love either by the yearly course or long run, as if thou having been in the state of grace for so or so long a time, yet then for the other half-year, or more perhaps, thou shouldst be out of it again (I mention that space of half a-year because it was about that space some would have David to have had a total intercision of God's love, until Nathan came to him), and then the other half-year this sun should come back again unto thee in his love and good will; but take the whole course of God from first to last, and he is thine. Make not thy almanack by such uncertain rules;

God's calendar is otherwise. Remember that God is here said not to be like the sun, neither in respect of its yearly motion, and the alternation and variableness thereof, nor yet his daily; God's almanack, calculated for eternity, varies not his love in either respects. Count up then with thyself that God loves thee not by the year only; that is, as if thou take the whole of thy life in gross by the great. No; but God loves thee by the day; he varies not in his love; it is unchangeable in respect of any daily recess of leaving of thee, I say his love is. Jesus Christ, this Sun of righteousness, his love never sets when once it is risen, but as, Heb. 13:8, 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.' I confess that place is mainly to be taken of his being the same in his virtue and efficacy in the yesterday of the Old Testament, and the present day of the gospel, and for the for ever in the other world; but withal when I cast my eye upon the 5th verse, where he had newly said to every particular soul,

'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee' (the fivefold force in that speech you have often heard of), you shall give me leave withal to take in this high consolatory, that Jesus Christ is to every particular soul, in respect of his love, in nowise nor in no degree leaving or forsaking them; the same to-day that yesterday he was, or at any time of thy life, and will continue the same for ever. And therefore go and carry home this for thy comfort, every one of your souls that have been savingly called for your particular, first cast but your eye on the words, ver. 5, 'I will never,' &c., and then on the 8th, 'Jesus the same,' &c., and see if they do not directly look one upon the other.

Again, when Paul says, 'My inward man is renewed day by day,' 2

Cor. 4:16, our spirits would be in a miserable plight, if in any day, even of sinning most, we should not be renewed, for then we should fall back instantly into unregeneracy, but in the worst day of greatest sinnings we do not; he upholds by renewing something of his grace, and gracious conflicts against sin in us. And though we feel not these renewings, yet I promise you, said old Mr Dod, in my hearing once, I believe I am thus renewed every day, though I discern it not. Yea,

God loves thee not by the day only, but by the moment: Isa. 27:2, 3, 'In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it

night and day.' Remember but out of the text, how that God's good will varies not as the sun doth, neither in respect of a yearly motion, nor a daily motion off from these; but not so to a temporary work, with which he deals providentially, and as this visible sun doth towards the fruits which it brings forth.

Use 1. Hast thou had such a work upon thee as even here out of James hath been scatteredly set out? (1.) That of humiliation, ver.7,

10, through which by the power of the Spirit this world hath been blasted to thee; 'the Spirit of the Lord having blown upon it' for ever, that thy valuation of things hath been for ever changed, and withal thine interest changed from things of this world, that thou makest thy height; Ὕψος, the height, the top of thy desires, esteem, pursuance, the things of the other world, so as thou gloriest not in any excellency; as Jer. 9:23, 24, 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord,' &c., which words do particularly speak the very sum of James his aim in these 9th and 10th verses.

(2.) And then hast thou had faith wrought in thee, laying hold on the love of God in Christ Jesus, as verse 3?

(3.) And that faith when tried thou hast found to work patience in thee, submission to God, quietness of heart, upon this ground, that thou waitest upon God, and leavest the issue of all unto him, as verse

4, though perhaps patience hath not yet had its full, perfect work which it shall have in thee.

And (4.) in all distresses thy heart cleaves unto God, which it shews in earnest addresses unto him for grace and wisdom to carry thee through, and seekest that wisdom more than deliverance, especially when thou fearest to be called to suffer for Christ, which whensoever it falls out thou still resolvest to cleave to him, and adhere to thy profession in all truths and duties revealed to thee, which thou shalt

come to be tried in, as those which thou art to hold fast in such a day; to 'confess and not deny,' as it is said of John, and as the three children, Dan. 3:16, 17, 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.' And so thou waverest not, hast not so much as wavering thoughts whether to cleave to God and the times:*

'And though all this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Yea, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter,' Ps.

44:17–23; for this is that not-wavering which James intends in those times of distress, and temptation, and not only or mainly a doubting in respect of an assurance that God will hear my prayers in this or that particular.

(5.) And then, lastly, hast thou love to God, which James inserts in ver. 12, 'When he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him'? Of this I spake something when I spake to that of calling.

And is this the frame and pulse of thy heart? Let me tell thee from James, or God rather, these gifts are of the sort of perfect and good gifts for kind as will in the end make thee perfect; continue but in the exercise of them, and let them but have more time and scope in thy heart, let them have their perfect work. Yea, and they are such gifts as God out of his eternal good will hath begotten in thee, and which in the end will rise up to be, and cause thee to be, the first fruits and perfection of the whole creation, and for which God hath an unchangeable respect, and will follow and prosecute without variableness or shadow of turning off from thee; and having wrought

these good gifts in thee, he hath an everlasting regard unto them, and out of his faithfulness will continue to preserve them.

For the close, and for your further consolation and confirmation, I shall here cast in this further consolatory. You may observe in several scriptures, where this good and saving work of calling is spoken of, that there God's faithfulness is brought in, and laid afore you, as the pawn and gage to perform it, that attribute of all other is staked thereat, as that by virtue of which God hath called us, and is obliged to preserve that work of calling by a more special kind of obligation.

And there must be some special thing in it, and reason for this their connection, but thus you do find them joined together: 1 Cor. 1:8, 9,

'Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.' Then again, 1 Thes. 5:23, 24, 'And the very God of peace sanctify yon wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he who hath called you, who also will do it.'

1. By faithfulness in these places is understood, first, that God is constant to himself, and to his own purposes of grace, in that 'whom he predestinateth, he calleth; and whom he calleth, he glorifieth.'

And he having in calling given a most full demonstration of the constancy of his everlasting good will towards us, this may fully assure us of the continuance of it; for the case stood thus, that he had close kept those purposes in his own breast from everlasting, and the persons now called could never have known of them, nor inquired after them, had he not in mere constancy to those purposes called them at first, and thereby discovered himself in his intention to them, which therefore afterwards he will bide by; for 'the foundation of the Lord is sure,' &c.

2. Or, secondly, you may refer this faithfulness unto those promises which had gone before in the Old Testament, whereof you read, Jer.

31:33, and 32:40, 'I will write my law in their hearts' (there is

calling); and then follows, 'I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me.' And so in respect to those promises gone out of his mouth, wherein the promises of calling have annexed promises of preservation, in that respect also he is said to be 'faithful who hath called,' &c.

3. But this is yet further improveable for our comfort, and stedfastness of our faith. Faithfulness, you know, is the performance of a trust committed to one by some other that relies upon him, or the discharge of some obligation that ariseth thence.

Now upon calling there is a twofold trust committed unto God: one by Jesus Christ, and another by the persons themselves that are called; and so an obligation ariseth upon God thereupon.

(1.) Between God and Jesus Christ, whose interest in the promise I have good reason to draw in; for the text hath it, 'called by Jesus

Christ.' Christ is our covenant between God and us, and unto whom the covenant was indeed first made, and given by God as for us, and on our behalf, and so the performance of it by God is justly termed faithfulness on his part. God trusted Christ to die for us, promising him that he should 'see his seed, the travail of his soul, and be satisfied,' Isa. 53:10, 11, which comes to pass by God's calling them and making them his children, as the phrase is, Jer. 3; you have the same likewise in Isa. 49 throughout; Christ died upon this bare promise of God's, having millions of souls that he bare in his womb upon the cross, that were yet unborn, much more that were uncalled and unsaved. Now hence therefore, whensoever God calls any of these to himself, and begins to work savingly upon them, this being the first and fundamental performance of his promise to Christ, hence therefore in a singular respect God is said to be faithful, and shews by this his good beginning he intends as faithfully to carry and bring them throughout unto salvation.

You may find, 1 Cor. 1:9, when this faithfulness of God is spoken of, the expression runs thus, 'Who shall confirm you to the end. God is

faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.' I understand part of its meaning to be this, that Jesus Christ was, by covenant made to him by his Father, to have fellows or companions, partakers of the same grace and glory with himself. The man God's fellow was not to be in heaven alone, John

12, but to have fellow-copartners, Ps. 45:14, and to mediate and procure this was the end of his dying, as in John 12:23, 24, 'The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit;' and unto that end it was he died. Now calling is the first foundation act of performance of this by God, and then first we are actually admitted into communion with Jesus, and into the right of copartnership with him of all his privileges; we are then drawn by the Father unto Jesus

Christ; we are then co-apprehended by Jesus Christ, Philip. 3:12, and have all blessings in Christ estated upon us for ever, to be given forth as need is, and as the time appointed by the Father comes to give them forth unto eternity; and therefore God, that hath done this in faithfulness, after so long a time since his covenant with Christ, will perform it to the end. For 'faithful is he,' &c., and Christ lives and sees to it to see this done, and calls upon him for it.

You may find all this most lively set forth by Christ himself, in John 17, at a time when he was within less than a day's space to offer up himself by dying, when it is he leaves behind him (and it is now upon record) with his Father, what he expected to be performed by him in answer unto his end and covenant in dying. There you find Christ telling his Father, first, that those his disciples, whom he had from everlasting given him, had been converted and effectually called, ver.

6–8, 'I have manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me. Now they have known that all things, whatsoever thou hast given me, are of thee: for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou hast sent me.' And then he commits them to him at his farewell, and as his farewell, ver. 11, 'I

am no more in this world, but these are in the world, and now I commit them unto thee. Holy Father, keep them through thy name.

Whilst I was in the world, I kept them in thy name: those whom thou gavest me I have kept, and none is lost.' And ver. 20, 'Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their words.' This is Christ's last prayer at his death, it was the terms upon which he offered up himself, and it is made for all who should believe and be called, and it is, you see, that they should be kept. He trusts his Father with them, and those thereafter to come in, to call and preserve them, and he prayeth these things in the pre-intuition of, and as fore-seeing, their temptations: ver. 15, 'I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but from the evil;' as if he had said, they are to live to serve thee yet in the world, only preserve them from whatever evil it is their lot to conflict withal, and rather than they should not be kept from the evil, even take them out of the world. These things having been thus transacted between God and Christ, therefore God, the God of all grace, now when Christ is gone to heaven, both did then, and will be sure to perform all this exactly, according to Christ's word and the full tenure of this his prayer; and as he did keep those disciples he before had called, and then commended to his Father's care, and made holy apostles of them, whose fruit remains to this day, and themselves are now in glory, so he hath performed the rest of Christ's words, both in effectually calling the rest of those souls Christ died for, and were to believe, through their word, to the end of the world, whom also he keeps and preserves, as we know God did these disciples unto the end of their days; and all this God hath, and will be sure to perform in very faithfulness unto Jesus Christ. And this is the discharge of the first trust made by Christ.

(2.) God is engaged in very faithfulness unto the very souls whom he calls. For not only their conversion it is an espousal of them unto

God, 2 Cor. 11:2, 'I have espoused you to one husband.' And this God doth in very faithfulness, Hos. 2:19, 20, 'I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord.'

But truly, besides that God is pleased thus to engage himself of himself, it is further considered by God how great a trust the soul of every poor creature, when God called it and it effectually answered to his call, did then commit unto God. And consider well the terms of your calling (brethren), even on your part. A poor soul at its first coming to God gave up all to him, not yet knowing whether God would save it or no, even upon bare hopes: 'It may be God may be merciful,' casting itself upon him, 'if there might be hope.' And it did this really and in earnest: 'We have forsaken all,' says Peter, 'and whither shall we go?' And thereupon the world began to hate them, because they began to profess, and it will never heartily love them again (as it doth not, no, not an apostate, because once a professor of Christ). Yea, they adventured upon, and did take on them this profession of his name, seeing their own inability to think so much as one good thought, knowing that all their sufficiency is of God, and that he it is that must 'work in them to will and to do according to his good pleasure;' and they knew and considered that the world would be sure to scandal and reproach them for any evil they shall run into, and expect and exact great strictness and exactness from them, or take advantage against them to 'speak all manner of evil of them,' for they did it even for what is good in them.

Now if this be the case (as it is), for a soul to give itself up unto the Lord and his ways for ever, this is the greatest, the purest, trust that you have ever heard or read of. And can you think that God will not be faithful? 'Faithful is he that hath called you,' and drawn this selfforsaking and so high an undertaking from you. Trust on your part draws out faithfulness on his. One scripture, and no more, for this, 2

Tim. 1:12, 'I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed unto him against that day.' All that could fall out between his first believing and that day he committed to God; because that he was able was one ground, and that he was faithful was the other, I know whom I have believed‚ this referreth to faithfulness; and that other, I am persuaded‚ unto his ability, as Grotius hath observed.

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